Deeplinks Blog posts about Online Behavioral Tracking

EFF and other privacy and consumer groups like Privacy Rights Clearinghouse and Consumer Action have publicly responded to industry allegations that effective privacy regulations would harm the economy and innovation. A letter by sixteen trade groups—including the American Advertising Federation and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce—addressed to party heads of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, urged senators to ignore needed changes in privacy laws. The privacy coalition took issue with these claims, pointing to the very real privacy harms suffered by consumers online. Currently, most users are unaware of the pervasive nature of online tracking—and have no way to stop it. Helping consumers feel confident in their privacy will encourage innovation in the digital environment, spurring a robust online economy.

We’ve previously written about the Kerry-McCain "Commercial Privacy Bill of Rights," which tries to create a general federal privacy framework rooted in the Fair Information Practices (although we’re not sure how well it succeeds). Currently, federal privacy law is sector-specific, often applying only to certain types of information or certain categories of "covered entities," and thus leaving gaps in privacy protection. A good comprehensive federal privacy law could fill those gaps.

On Tuesday, Senators John McCain and John Kerry introduced the long-awaited Commercial Privacy Bill of Rights, a sweeping bill that covers online and offline data collection, retention, use, and dissemination practices. Unfortunately, the bill may fall short of what’s needed to protect our privacy.

There is a lot of discussion about Do Not Track at the moment. The FTC has announced support for the idea; Mozilla has added a Do Not Track header option into Firefox betas, and Congresswoman Jackie Speier has introduced a Do Not Track bill. Other proposed privacy legislation, such as Rep. Bobby Rush's bill, could also achieve similar objectives. And yesterday, EFF submitted comments urging the Federal Trade Commission to defend online privacy by supporting the header-based Do Not Track feature.

Support for a browser-header-based "Do Not Track" proposal is building in both the federal government and the private sector, which is good news for Internet users who are concerned about privacy. Friday, EFF submitted comments to the Department of Commerce Internet Policy Task Force, urging the department to embrace the system and support legislation that would authorize the Federal Trade Commission to act on Do Not Track.